In the semiconductor industry, devices are fabricated by a number of manufacturing processes producing structures of ever-decreasing size. Some manufacturing processes such as plasma etch and plasma clean processes expose a substrate support (e.g., an edge of the substrate support during wafer processing and the full substrate support during chamber cleaning) to a high-speed stream of plasma to etch or clean the substrate. The plasma may be highly corrosive, and may corrode processing chambers and other surfaces that are exposed to the plasma.
Plasma spray coatings are utilized to protect chamber components from processing conditions, in order to enhance on-wafer defect performance as well as the lifetime of the component. Typical chamber component coatings, however, can have inherent porosity, cracks, and rough surface finishes, which detract from their performance.